4/14

It’s been a long time. I couldn’t make myself write a whole lot over Christmas. A lot happened. I got engaged, and we’re getting married in July, I lost my job over a budget cut, the world is bursting at the seams with bad news, my brother bought a new house, our mom is thinking seriously about moving out here, I’m staring a new job next week. 

I was doing better (I think)! I was at the part of the grief process where I wasn’t thinking about it constantly every day, and when it did come up, I was able to feel that feeling for a moment then move on. My therapist and I have been focusing on not just my grief, which felt like a huge step forward (now we get to deal with the family dynamics from before he died, it’s so fun!).

And now it’s my favorite time of year. Especially in the Pacific Northwest, spring is green and pink and white and purple and red and full of pollen and rain and sunshine and birds singing and mud. It smells good outside, even when it’s icky out. When the tulips come out I know it’s finally time for me to come out of my shell, feeling like I popped a molly just by going for a walk.

Yesterday I was out for a flower walk and noticed a big lilac bush starting to bloom. I love everything about lilacs, especially that they last so little time that you really have to catch them in the moment. A reminder that life is beginning again and the sunshine shouldn’t be taken for granted. When I was a kid there was a huge lilac bush next to our swingset, and I would swing for hours while my brother played in the sandbox, singing Disney songs at the top of my lungs, not going inside until it was dark and so cold my toes were about numb. It meant springtime; that school was almost over; that there was (probably) no more snow.

The lilacs were blooming all over the place in the midwest when I went back last May, so while I was going back and forth from the hospital I did my best to revel in the nostalgia. Wisconsin is always about a month bloom behind us, and I felt lucky to be there when they were still blooming; two lilac seasons, what could be better!? (lol) The hospital he was at had lilacs planted all over the perimeter, huge swaths of purple to cover the windows looking into the dying. From his sad street-level window, I could see a dark purple lilac bush, and one day I picked a bunch and brought them in, thinking it would be nice to have a scent other than “Neuro ICU” in the room. Woof, Al, what did you do to yourself.

Fast forward a year later, that lilac bush blooming near my house, the sweet smell of my favorite flower, is tainted with the smell of disinfectant and stale air, just like the sound of cars whooshing by on my flower walks mirrors the sound of a ventilator, and picking out wedding rings is juxtaposed with the flash of a gold ring on a swollen hand trying to pull out his feeding tubes.

I knew May would be hard, but I didn’t anticipate April to somehow be just as hard. We’re almost to the dark time. We’re almost at a year.

A whole ass year.

How has it been a whole year without him?

A whole football and basketball season, a whole winter, a whole Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, his birthday, without him. 

But most jarring, a whole spring. My dad loved spring. He planted tons of plants and flowers, spending way too much time at Menards picking out clearance perennials and grass seed and weed killer. He loved that first lawn mow of the season, putting on the grossest shoes imaginable (without socks, too! ew!) and wrapping the decades old walkman around his arm to listen to Uecker call the first few Brewers games. He half-heartedly complained about the amount of work he had to put into the deck or the lawn or the garden, all the while so proud of the little oasis he was creating. He had a collection of weird faded garden gnomes; there is something so funny to me about a man who hated Pixar movies but loved garden gnomes and nutcrackers.

And he also loved lilacs. And peonies. And roses. And irises, tulips, dahlias. He loved flowers as much as I do. He loved color as much as I do. He didn’t care about allergies, when the weather inched above 50 he was out golfing, riding his bike, going for walks, anything to be outside, just like me (sans the golf). He rarely wore sunscreen on anything but his bald head, so he would have a light tan by the end of May, even when there was hardly a single day over 60. 

And most days he would call and lament about the weather. He would ask how warm it was where we were, even though he already knew because he’d checked our temps when he woke up and then again before calling. He would call about something important on his way to play golf, cutting us off when he got to the course four minutes into the conversation, causing you to pause your day, but god forbid he pause his. He would go on and on about the projects they were doing up at the cottage before water turn on, then talk about water turn on, then talk about how it was too cold to really be at the cottage because “there’s nothing to do when it’s chilly. If you can’t go down to the water, what’s the point?”

And god, I just miss him. More now than I think I even did last year. I thought it would be the big things, like knowing he wont be at my wedding. Knowing he won’t see my brother’s new house, or that he won’t meet our future children. Instead, it’s the smaller things I’m having a hard time getting through. It’s that I see him everywhere in springtime. It’s not getting to fill out a March Madness bracket with him. I see eagles all the time, wishing he was also seeing them. I wish I could show him my favorite park. I wish I could play Scrabble with him on my balcony, I would beat him every time and he would act like it was the first time he’d ever lost. I miss the missed calls, being able to call him and tell him I lost my job, hearing him say he’s still proud of me. 

I found myself wandering into my social media archives, looking at my life a year ago, wondering how I was so wrong about how sick he was. Trying to remember how happy I was, how great life had been, how light the springtime felt. I looked at photos that are so similar to ones I’ve taken this year, but the perspective has shifted so much it feels like they were taken with a different lens or by a different person. In a way, I guess they were.

I wish I could go back to a time when I could smell the lilacs and have them just be my favorite flower.

I wonder if every spring will feel just a little…off. I wonder if I’ll eventually be able to smell the lilacs again without thinking of St. Luke’s. I know… ~*tHe BoDy kEePs ThE sCoRe*~ but jesus, I hope my body will eventually let me just fucking enjoy my favorite season. 

“To grieve is to love fully” or whatever. Sure, but do I have to grieve during the springtime? Can’t I grieve in January when it’s gross and dark and I’m sad anyway? 

Okay, well now that that stream of consciousness is done, time for today’s flower walk. That’ll make me feel better (probably), or at least closer to him. Maybe in honor of him I’ll stop another beat to smell the flowers, just maybe not the lilacs.